The Avatar and the Water Chief
by Astrid Goes For A Spin
Summary: "The Earth Kingdom...has fallen." The Avatar. Hakoda didn't even know his name, but from the moment they returned - his daughter in rags and his son in tears - he became determined to find out what made this child so important to his family. Love.
1. Chapter 1

**Yeah, yeah, I know. I SHOULD be working on a million other things right now. Dragon Keeper, Spirited, These Three Days, Western Air Temple, to name but a few.**

**BUUUUT I couldn't let this go. All these unsatisfactory Hakoda meets Aang stories really got to me, and...there's quite a bit going on that we don't see while Aang's on his spirit world journey desperateley trying to save the Avatar spirit, and almost dying the whole entire time. **

**So...read, review, and enjoy. Emphasis on reviewing if you enjoy. =) **

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Katara wouldn't move him. "I can't. He-" she couldn't finish, but she couldn't cry. If she moved, he would move, and he would get worse. She couldn't get off of Appa's head until they got to wherever they were going, and that meant Sokka couldn't take control.

"You're going to have to," Sokka protested, climbing down gingerly, a hand attached to the saddle. "Just…cup him in your arms or something and move over! I need to get up there!"

Katara moved slightly. She gathered Aang close to her, scooting farther over so Sokka could stumble down and take the reins. "Yip yip." Appa made a noise and they turned abruptly. Aang rocked in Katara's arms, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Will he live?" Toph didn't care. The Earth King wasn't King of anything anymore, his kingdom, her kingdom, his stupid city had fallen. She punched him. He whimpered.

"I don't know." No one had expected Katara to talk, and when she did, her voice was hoarse, aggrieved. "I tried to heal his back with the water from the Spirit Oasis, but…"

"Good going," Toph muttered. The King had the grace to look ashamed of himself.

"He _has _to be okay," Sokka answered firmly. "It's his job to defeat the Fire Lord-"

"Do you even hear yourself?" whispered Katara viciously. "Aang _died,_ Sokka! And all you can talk about – about – is – the stupid _Fire Lord!_ Don't you even care that he's – _Aang?_" Tears dropped from her eyes, wetting the torn, dirty fabric of Aang's shirt. She smoothed some of it down, and noticed that his skin was too cold.

Wordlessly, she clutched him tighter. He was alive, she knew it. He'd died, but he'd been brought back.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Toph regretted saying anything, but Sokka's voice said from ahead of her, "Chameleon Bay. Where the other Water Tribe warriors are."

Katara raised her head. Dad. No – Aang made a noise, halfway between a moan and a whimper, and she held his bald head closer to her. No matter what was wrong with her and her dad, Aang was more important.

"Let's go."

...

Hakoda hadn't expected to see the bison back again. When the Avatar had come with that anguished look on his face that meant Katara was in trouble, he never thought he would see the children again. He thought they would disappear, maybe go into hiding, save Katara, and he would never know about it.

Therefore, his world was rocked as everyone departed from the Sky Bison (including the King of the Earth Kingdom and his pet bear) except Katara. Her hair was down, massive waves whipping in the wind, and she was huddled over the bison's head.

"Help." Sokka was standing directly under her, his arms raised. Hakoda rushed over, about to demand what was wrong, expecting to see Katara jump (or fall) into Sokka's hands. However, she inched closer to the edge. Then she planted herself down.

"I'm not doing it," she said. "I can't."

Through the gap in her tattered sleeve, something was visible – Hakoda looked closer and saw skin. A head with a blue arrow tattooed onto it, lolling back against her, clearly unconscious.

"Katara-"

His daughter ignored him. "He'll get hurt. You're going to have to help me by getting up here."

Grumbling, Sokka reached up, swinging on the bison's gigantic horn. Katara got closer until she was almost standing. Hakoda could see the child now – the Avatar's clothes were torn, his foot was swollen, red, and black and bleeding, and there was a ragged hole in his back. His eyes were shut, his mouth hanging open, and Katara wasn't going to let go.

Hakoda helped brace Sokka, but his son, too, ignored him. Katara was crying, he could see. And carefully – so, so carefully, she passed the dead boy down to him.

Sokka hopped to the ground, and didn't even stagger under what seemed to be hardly any weight. Faintly, Katara slid off the bison's head and ordered, "Lay him out."

A small girl with mounds of black hair dressed in Earth Kingdom colors stood by Katara. At her nod, the girl raised her arms sharply, erecting a shelter of rock that separated the group from the tent town of the Southern Water Tribe.

"Sokka, water," instructed his daughter, and Hakoda leaned closer. Why in the world would they be doing all this for the dead Avatar? Surely the Earth Kingdom had fallen, or the world was coming to an end, but no one was doing anything about it. Instead, they were taking orders from Katara, who seemed to have wrangled control over herself.

Sokka ran toward the bay, and came back seconds later frantically toting baskets filled to the brim.

Katara took a deep breath. "Turn him over." The Earthbender hastened to obey, gently turning the Avatar's shoulders so he was lying on his stomach. She then sat at his head, holding it in her lap. She held his bald head, as if assuring herself that he had to be alive.

Then Katara raised her arms, summoning the water to rise from her either side. Hakoda was too worried for their friend to be impressed at his daughter's prowess, but instead watched, leaning against the earthen wall, as she brought the water down, gently, to the Avatar's open back.

"AH!" Hakoda's heart stopped. The Avatar's eyelids fluttered open and he grunted in pain. The Earthbender grinned. "Twinkletoes!" Obviously he didn't hear her. The Avatar was alive! Somehow, with fatal injuries. It looked like lightning to him, but there was no way –

Katara's hands glowed with unearthly blue light, filling the shelter and dazzling his eyes. When he was able to look at the Avatar's back again, it had closed somewhat, still looking red and raw, and his face was contorted, grimacing in pain and torment that only he could feel.

Katara moaned, and moved her hands to his foot, closing it as well.

"uuha.." his voice was weak, but he coughed, and said softly, "Katara – help-"

She began crying again, fiercely protective, she swooped over him, her tattered skirts flying up. "What? What is it?"

"Th- the Avatar Spirit. It's – dying. Help…me."

"Anything."

Hakoda couldn't help it. He broke down, and tears fell from his eyes. Through the haze of his daughter's misery, he could see her, crouched at the Avatar's limp form, her hands working magic. She was whispering, and he could understand: "You can do it."

The Earthbender was crying, too, and it looked highly unusual on her. She was sniffling, tears streaming on either side of her face, and she wasn't bothering to wipe them away. "Aang- you have to live. You _have _to."

His son, Sokka, suddenly reentered the tent with yet more water. "Aang – you're okay!" Sokka, who he had not seen cry since the days of Kaya's passing, had water in his eyes. After briefly stooping to check on the unconscious boy, he backed up to the edge of the tent. "Just – do whatever you can," he said softly to Katara. Then he wrapped a strong, brotherly arm around the Earthbender.

Hakoda did, too, causing a threefold embrace. His daughter was too frantic to leave the side of the Avatar, but still he muttered, "I'm sorry for your loss." He had no idea how to respond, other than the misery he felt from his children's distress. The Avatar was the world's last hope, but here he was, dying in his daughter's arms. Broken, bloodied, and seemingly very different from the monster who destroyed the Fire Navy and punished an Earth Kingdom general. But then again, if he was a monster, his friends wouldn't care so dearly for him.

Sokka made eye contact with him, and said simply, "It's your loss too."

"Stop," Katara's voice was a broken whisper. "He might be down, but he's not _gone. _And we're not giving up hope. Not… yet."

Even through all the years of war and pain and suffering the Fire Nation had put them through, losing Kaya, battling together, leaving them on their own for years, Hakoda had never felt so close to his children.

He only regretted that it had taken the life of the Avatar to do so.


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow. My reason for not updating this time? I honestly thought the second chapter has been up for ages. Seriously. I was shocked when I realized it wasn't. Currently, I'm almost finished writing Chapter 3. **

**Wow. Pathetic. But, anyway, this is the newest installement. Before the next one, however, I think I'm going to put up a few background oneshots. I mean, how did the Water Tribe know Sokka and Katara were with the Avatar? Why didn't Hakoda rush over there to meet Aang as soon as Appa landed? Why did he let Sokka go without him? **

**Read and review. You know the drill.**

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The night was solemn, even as the campfire crackled, breaking the dusk.

"What are you going to do, Hakoda?" Bato took a seat beside him as Hakoda turned a stick over in the fire.

"I don't know. Katara – it's so confusing. She says the Avatar died, but he seems alive…to me."

Bato was quiet for a moment, thinking his way through the obscure comment. "What happened down there?"

"I don't know." Sokka appeared from the shadows, his wolftail down, an uncharacteristically solemn look on his face. "Katara won't say, and obviously Aang isn't in shape."

Hakoda lowered his head, mourning something. The Avatar's death, the Avatar's loss, or the Avatar's injury? The loss that his family went through? He couldn't fathom it himself.

"I'll tell you." The short Earthbender sat herself between Sokka, leaning against a tentpole, and Hakoda, heading the fire. She leaned toward the flames, rubbing her hands over her arms to get rid of the goosebumps that had erupted there. As she did so, she brushed her hair to the side, revealing open, blank, mist-colored eyes. Hakoda almost drew back, realizing that one of the companions that his children had chosen to travel with was blind.

"There was a coup, to overthrow the Earth King. The Dai Li-" as she spoke, a bear lumbered over, drawn to the sound of her voice, nuzzling against her. Absently, she patted his neck slowly, and his king was not far behind, listening intently. "Are a group of Earthbenders, loyal to Long Feng, and when we got him arrested-"

Hakoda started. His children had gotten a very important Earth Kingdom man arrested? He leaned closer, drawing his eyebrows together in concentration, wondering how they had gotten into this. All he had heard for months and months was silence, then a rumor of destruction at the North Pole. Once the Avatar – and his rumored two Water Tribe companions from the South – had landed in the Earth Kingdom, news had been coming quicker. General How. The Drill. And now, this.

"The Fire Nation Princess took over. She was impersonating some of our friends, and she took control of the Dai Li. They kidnapped Katara. I was tricked by some bounty hunters my dad hired-" Hakoda noticed she said this ever so casually, leaning back, some, even, disconnected, "Into thinking my mom was in Ba Sing Se. They trapped me in a metal box." Here her voice took on some pride. "I busted out. Aang was at the Eastern Air temple, trying to learn from a Guru how to master the Avatar State." What in the world could she be talking about? Hakoda saved his puzzlement and listened harder. "Sokka was with you. Aang found out because of his special Avatar magic Katara was in trouble, got Sokka, and ran into me. Sokka and I were going to warn the Earth King about the coup, and Aang went to get Katara with a friend of mine, the Fire General Iroh. But he's retired now. Nice guy," she added conversationally.

"Apparently the whole Dai Li was down there, with the Fire Nation Princess and the Prince, who's been tracking these guys all over the world for the past few months." She jabbed a thumb at Sokka, toward the tent where Katara and Aang were sequestered. "The big hole in Aang's back is from lightning – Azula. He'll live. Probably."

She paused, then seemed to convince herself to say, "He's tougher than he looks, actually."

"You can say that again," Sokka muttered.

"The Fire Nation prince has been following you, Sokka?"

The Earthbender blew at her bangs, and his son said, almost patronizing that his father didn't know this clearly important fact about his life, "Yeah, dad. He attacked the village at the North Pole, and followed us for months. Then, (because he'd been banished, or something) him and his uncle got kicked out of the Fire Nation again because of the Moon-" the offhanded telling grew softer, and Sokka paused for the barest of moments before he continued. "So they went to Ba Sing Se, where we found them. Zuko's been trying to capture Aang for a while now, to take him to the Fire Lord to regain his honor."

"His. Honor." Katara's scoffing voice could be heard, and she moved aside a tent flap. She must have been listening the whole time, realized Hakoda. One of the Avatar's feet was visible, the one with the ruined sole was resting in her lap. Every so often it would move, as if aching to run, or perhaps doing it, in the spirit world.

Her metallic blue eyes were glowing with spite and malice and pain, leaning up against the tent pole, her whole aura different because of her ragged, down hair. Women in the South Pole never wore their hair down, it was too dangerous. It would catch things, and if its lengths got wet ice would form and could be deadly.

"The next time I see him, he's going to have better things to worry about than _his honor._"

Suddenly Katara's voice broke. "He said – he said the Fire Nation took _his _mother away from him. I – I told him about Mom. He said – he changed. And then he _turned right around and fought on __**her side!" **_

Her eyes were flashing, angry tears streaming down either side of her face. "_I – I trusted him, and he betrayed me! I even-" _

She couldn't hold herself up. Hakoda wasn't close enough to catch her, but her elbow collapsed and she braced herself by one long, bare arm in the sand.

"I even offered to heal his scar." Her voice was raw, ragged, and so hurt, so traumatized Hakoda couldn't look at her. "With my spirit water."

"Well, I guess that was a good thing," said Sokka reasonably. "I mean, if you wasted it all on him, Aang would be-"

Katara's head came up, and she turned quickly, unfastening the tent flap and letting it fall back to conceal herself and the Avatar. "Don't. Say. It."

"Don't worry," mumbled the Earthbender. "He won't."

Hakoda didn't know what to think, say, or do. It was obvious that he was no longer a part – big or small – in his children's lives, and he didn't know how to help them. The Avatar – Aang – was in grave condition, and his daughter was the only person qualified to help him. It was obvious that they were going nowhere soon, and he gave the order to erect more tents for his son and his friend.

"Actually, that won't be necessary," the friend grinned, the first time he'd seen her smile since Aang had reacted to the healing. She straightened up, cocking her head as if listening to something no one else could hear. She then flexed her fingers and settled into a semi-upright Earthbending stance. It only took a moment, and he had barely registered that her arms had moved before another tent of rock had shot up into existence behind her. "Don't trouble yourselves."

Hakoda blinked. Whatever he was, he wasn't prepared to see, and deal with the fighting styles of his son's companions – even though one of them was his daughter. He was already waiting anxiously for when the Avatar would wake up, meaning that he'd be witness to even more spectacular displays of bending.

"Waterbending was bad enough," grumbled his son. "And _then _we had to find a little Airbender! And now he's a Waterbender! And then _this one _joined up and taught him to play with rocks, too!"

Hakoda chuckled. Perhaps everything indeed would be all right if his son could joke around again.

A second later, perhaps, Hakoda was forced to acknowledge that he probably wasn't joking, as Sokka was catapulted to his feet, and he rubbed his backside indignantly. "Hey! What did Aang say about bullying me?"

The blind Earthbender grinned. "Oh, really? I thought you didn't _like _to have '_The Avatar'_ intercede with your problems with Katara and me? What was all that about '_A real warrior stands his ground against Firebenders, so I can stand my ground against _you?"

"Ehmphernelsohnlkkmph!" Sokka crossed his arms and looked pointedly the other direction. "Just because you're the almighty '_Blind Bandit' _doesn't mean-"

"Hey!" shouted the Earthbender, real anger crossing her face now. "I thought we were _done _talking about that, _okay?"_

"You're not the only one who's got parent issues, you know," mumbled Sokka, gripping his arm, staring at the ground. "Don't think _too _highly of yourself, _Toph._"

They seemed to have forgotten Hakoda was there, and she was silent, waiting for Sokka to continue.

"The important thing is that Aang's going to be okay," Toph said cautiously when it became clear Sokka wasn't going to say anything else. Instead, he was sitting with his knees to his chest, his face illuminated in the moonlight, looking very thoughtful and sad.

Hakoda was silent.

Suddenly, the flap to the earth tent swung open, and Katara's face was visible, tears of relief sparkling. "He's going to be okay! He's out of danger now. He's not…exactly going to wake up for a while, because he needs time to rest. But – he's definitely going to live."

"I am so, so proud of you, Katara," Hakoda said lowly, reaching toward her face, but his daughter drew back sharply and didn't reply.


End file.
